


Memento Mori

by sleepycae



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Animal Death, Emetophobia, Explicit Language, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, LGBTQ Character, adult au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9641009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepycae/pseuds/sleepycae
Summary: Lance, convinced his neighbor killed a man, steals Keith's trash to prove it once and for all to his roommates that their neighbor is a serial killer. In a fic that was (very) loosely inspired by The 'Burbs, Lance breaks and enters, Hunk flirts with death, and Pidge gets really sick.





	

"I did something bad."

Hunk pushes the newspaper aside to look at Lance as Pidge raises an eyebrow and turns away from her laptop. Before either can ask any questions, Lance drags in a large, full trash bag into the kitchen.

"I did something really bad!" he exclaims.

Lance and Hunk and Pidge had been living in a nice little home nestled in suburbia for about a year. It wasn't the best neighborhood in the world, but the landlords weren't racist and the rent was cheap enough that their combined rent pool left them with a good enough pay individually to live comfortably. Plus, the neighbors were nice. Coran was always willing to give up a cup of sugar for a cake or a socket wrench to help with one of Hunk and Pidge's projects in the garage.

And then Keith moved in next door.

Hunk gives a withering look towards Pidge for assistance. It's not given in return. Instead Pidge starts laughing and rocks back in her chair.

"That's Keith's trash, isn't it??" she howls.

"It is!" Lance confirms, looking proud of himself.

" _Why_ do you have Keith's trash??" Hunk balks. "And _why_ are you dragging it around in the house if you think there are dead bodies in it??"

When Keith moved in, Lance immediately hated him. He'd been nice enough, of course, but...Lance had a bad habit of picking people around his age that looked more put together than him and declaring them a rival. Keith ran on weird hours and kept to himself, but he had a beautiful car and talked about his ritzy job as a pilot when they first met him. He made a lot of money, and he got to visit nice places. He'd often be gone days and weeks at a time.

Lance hated him for all of it.

At first he'd make jokes that Keith was a vampire because no one saw him outside during the day when he was home. Then the rumors started to build and build: The light was always on in the front right window no matter the time of day; he was constantly digging holes in the backyard, like some kind of angry, mulleted terrier; every time he _did_ leave the house out of uniform, it was just to go out into the shed in the backyard.

Then an older man showed up one day at Keith's house. No one saw him leave. It wouldn't have been weird except his car remained in the driveway until Keith called a tow truck to take it away.

This man's disappearance cemented the rumor that Keith was a murderer.

Hunk told Lance he was being dramatic, that the car might have stalled and he'd needed a ride home. Lance wouldn't hear it.

Hunk had thought it was just Lance taking a joke too far, but now, as he stares at the bag in the kitchen, he's not sure. Lance genuinely believes Keith is a serial killer.

"Hunk," Lance starts, "if we're going to catch a murderer, we have to think like a murderer."

Pidge just gives him a strange look. "What kind of murderer is going to dispose of the bodies with the Monday trash? They can easily track where these trucks go and narrow down a search if they find a dead body inside."

"Keith's not very smart," Lance scoffs. "Obviously."

Hunk rolls his eyes. "Yeah, sounds about right. He's not smart and that's why he hasn't been caught yet." He throws his arms out wildly, eyes widening. "Or maybe he's not a murderer at all and you just stole our neighbor's trash to go through it like a creeper!!!"

"It's not creepy!" Lance argues. "It's not like I'm looking for his underwear or something!"

Pidge snorts. "Please. The only way this can escalate is if you break into his house and start rummaging through his stuff."

"Actually, Pidge," Lance replies sagely, "I would break into his car's trunk, first. He's likely to keep his tools in there. What kind of moron would break into a murderer's house without some sort of plan?"

" _Are_ you planning it?" Pidge asks, the corners of her lips curling into a smirk.

Lance doesn't answer, and Hunk swears, pointing at him.

"Lance, don't you dare! We've got it too good here for you to ruin it by getting a restraining order and having to move!"

"Whatever! I've got it under control! Let's just open this bad boy up and see what's inside!"

Pidge asks, "Our neighbors weren't watching you drag this back here were they?" as Hunk shouts, "No, no, no! We are not taking the trash out in the middle of the kitchen! Take it to the porch!"

Before Lance can say anything, Pidge gives Hunk an incredulous look and slaps him hard on the arm. "You're letting him go through it as long as it's not in the kitchen!? Hunk! This is crazy!"

Hunk sighs. "We're not going to find anything. The faster we go through it, the faster Lance will give up this nonsense!"

"We're going to be digging through trash," Pidge sneers. "I hope you realize this, Hunk. Trash. Our _neighbor's_ trash, who we don't know very well! Keith never goes outside. What if it's just filled with used tissues or something?? What if we find gross porn in there? What if he's a furry and we find Bad Dragon dildos in there!?"

"Pidge...you _own_ a Bad Dragon dildo."

"Yeah, but I don't _use_ it! I bought it as a _joke_."

They're too busy arguing to see Lance dragging the bag out of the kitchen and making his way through the house to the back door. By the time they've stopped and made their way outside, Lance is standing over the open trash bag and pulling out a small manila folder that had been placed on the top.

"Nothing out of place so far. Just a bunch of folders," he tells them as the two crowd around the bag. He opens the folder and looks through it. "It looks like he really likes hiking and photography. There's one of a sunset over a mountain in here, damn."

Hunk walks over and reaches in, digging past the folders and finding unopened letters addressed to what he assumes to be Keith's old house from someone named Brandon, a large wall scroll of...some old school anime he doesn't recognize the title of because it's in Japanese, and a t-shirt that says, "I Pooped Today," on it.

"What...the hell is this?" he asks.

Pidge looks at the shirt and stifles a laugh. "How hilarious would it be if one of us wore that to go over and talk to him?" She grabs the shirt from Hunk and tucks it under her arm. "Nevermind. I'm doing it."

"You can't just— He'll know we dug through his trash!"

"He's not the only one with that shirt, Hunk. Don't worry."

"This folder is titled Yellowstone. All of these have the same guy in them." Lance looks up at his friends, his voice solemn. "It's his first victim."

Pidge raises an eyebrow. "Or ex-boyfriend."

Hunk shakes the letters in his hand. "I'm betting on ex-boyfriend."

Lance's eyes widen. "Boyfriend!? Wait, so nothing in here is actually Keith's??"

Pidge frowns. "Aw man, I was hoping Keith was the type to wear an 'I Pooped Today' shirt. What a letdown." She winks at Lance. "His ex-boyfriend seems like a pretty fun guy, though. Maybe you've got a shot."

"I'm not interested in murderers, Pidge, but thanks for the vote of confidence."

Hunk groans. "Can you drop it with the murderer thing? This basically proves it! None of this is particularly incriminating. It's just...sad." He looks to the bag as Lance sticks his hands further in.

After a while, Lance just tosses the bag over and folders come spilling onto the ground. A couple of tennis balls come rolling out, along with a mound of more clothes. But there's something strange… Something is sticking straight up in the bag, something long and thin.

"What the hell is that? Another wall scroll?" Hunk asks, pointing.

"Finally," Pidge says in awe. "The fated dildo is here."

"That's as long as your forearm."

"Where there's a will there's a way," she answers, and suddenly she and Lance descend into raucous laughter. Hunk just rolls his eyes and opens the bag, reaching in and grabbing whatever it is. It's smooth but also...strangely rough. It feels sturdy, too, and it takes him a while to get it out from over the clothes.

As he does, Lance, who's staring at a picture in his hand, jumps and drops the folder. Pidge and Hunk, though, are staring at what Hunk pulls out. All three shout in unison—

"What the hell!?"

In Hunk's hand is a long, thin white bone. Parts of it are patchy, almost greasy-looking, and there's a long crack running down it. A piece on the top looks like it's been chipped off.

Lance turns to them and, upon seeing the bone, shouts again, almost stumbling backwards.

"I knew it! He's a murderer!"

Hunk just stares at it in his hand, his heart beat thumping hard in his chest. It feels like he's run a marathon. Pidge inspects it, and then turns to him.

"It's small, but it's not an arm bone. If it's human, it belongs to a kid."

"It's a leg," Hunk breathes, his voice shaking.

"That's it! We're calling the cops!"

Hunk looks up at Lance. "What? This...This doesn't..." He looks back at the bone in his hand. He's not sure he even believes himself when says, "It might not be human..."

Lance crouches down and shows them the picture in his hand. On it is a picture of a dead doe, blood clotted around its mouth, its eyes waxy and open. Part of its side has been eaten, and there are little pearly yellow bits amongst the black and red viscera painting its stomach and flank that can only be maggots.

Pidge grabs the photo and looks on in morbid fascination. Hunk just swallows a lump in his throat and paws it away with a disgusted look on his face. "Gross, Lance! Besides! This doesn't tell us anything. It's just a deer."

"It tells us enough! Clearly this guy is obsessed with death!"

"That doesn't mean anything," Pidge complains.

She reaches for the folders and opens one labeled Redwood National Parks. Inside are beautiful pictures of redwoods, sunlight slanting in through the top layer of trees as it peeks out of a break in the clouds. A photo of a lake with a man by a boat is next. He looks very attractive, for a guy, and has short cropped blonde hair and a beard. There are more photos of the lake, from the view of inside the boat. There are photos of hiking. A couple of bugs on leaves. She comes to one that is clearly a selfie. Keith and the man are side by side and Keith's arm is extended towards the camera. The man is giving him a peck on the cheek and Keith's face is bright and laughing.

Pidge looks over at Lance. "Hunk's right. This is sad. That bone is probably from a deer or an elk or something that he had lying around from their vacation."

Hunk finally drops the bone and leans over to look at the picture in her hand. He frowns deeply and sighs, and he reaches out to grab it from her. "Lance, look at this. Do you really think a guy like this would murde—"

"Woah."

Lance leans over to Pidge in time with Hunk. "What?"

Behind the selfie is a picture of a gray fox. It looks like it's sleeping save for the strange bloated look to its stomach. Around its mouth is a ring of red. Pidge stares on in awe, her mouth open and eyes glinting. Lance jumps up with a shout, and Hunk just looks down with a groan.

"See! I told you! He's creepy! I'll bet if we looked through all of these photos we'd find the same thing!"

They do. Each folder has pictures from various hiking trips. The same man is in all of them. Some have nothing strange to see, but a good many have pictures—sometimes more than one—of dead animals the men encountered on their hikes.

And that’s when Rover comes up and drops a small, still-meaty rodent skull in front of them on the stairs to the porch. He barks proudly, and the three turn to stare at him.

“Oh my God,” Pidge whispers, eyes roaming over the health hazard her dog just dropped into their yard.

Hunk loses it. He jumps with a start and raises his hands in the air. “Well, this has been fun, guys, but I’ve about had it for surprises today! I’m going inside to make Pidge’s birthday cake and I’m getting the hell away from this situation! Bye!”

“Hunk! Come back!” Lance yells after him. “Don’t you want to know where it came from??”

“Nope! Nah. I’m not feelin’ too hot, man! I'm going into the kitchen to contemplate my existence and no one is allowed to bother me! Tell me if you wind up calling the cops on Keith, but other than that just leave me alone!”

When he's gone, Lance immediately goes to Rover. "Hey, boy, what'd you find?" He doesn't reach down to touch the skull, and Pidge gets up to go inside.

"I'm going to go get some gloves to clean that up. Just. Stay there, Lance."

Lance pats Rover's head before reaching to the sides of his face and jiggling his jowls from side to side playfully. "Good boy! Show me where you found your ball, Rover! Show me where you found it!"

In response, Rover darts out of Lance's hands and over towards a dug up portion under the fence. Keith's fence. Lance goes cold and looks back to the back door. Pidge isn't back yet. He follows after the dog and crouches down in front of the disturbed ground. When he looks at it, he can see the edge of the wood planks of the fence suspended over a small hole big enough for Rover to fit through.

"I knew it. I fucking knew it."

Lance pats Rover on the head. "He's a murderer, alright. Probably kills animals when he can't get his fix killing humans. Good boy, Rover!"

After a moment, he peers through the cracks between the fence, trying his best to see if there's more disturbed ground. Most of the ground in the back is disturbed in some way. It's hard to see what was Rover and what was Keith. A small row in front of the shed darts across the lawn, and in front of each plot of earth is a little paper marker. Tombstones?

Lance looks up to the top of the fence and stands.

Keith had left the trash out before going for a drive. He was wearing his pilot uniform when he left, so there was no way he was coming back tonight.

Without a second thought, Lance puts his hands on the top of the fence and hoists himself up, just barely scraping against the side with his legs. While he sits on the edge, legs straddled over both sides, Rover barks up at him. Looking into the yard, he can finally get a clear view of what he saw through the cracks.

There's a row of little disturbed plots on the opposite side of the yard in front of the shed, each with a little paper marker. They each have dates marked on them with a number over the top. Underneath him, in front of the fence he's straddling, are four or five plots of disturbed ground littering the yard, only these have no labels.

He swings himself over the side and drops to the ground, the loose soil soft and pliable under his shoes. The amount of grass is sparse, and for a moment Lance wonders if this is good enough to call the homeowner's association on him for. He steps over and inspects the graves. A larger one has a sheet of paper with the number four scribbled over a date. The date is from three months before.

"Lance? Where did you— Lance!!"

Over the other side of the fence, Pidge's voice is coming closer and Rover's barking is subsiding into a dull whine. He curses under his breath and looks around, trying to take in as much as he can. When her voice is right up at the fence, he can hear the fury in her voice burn brighter and brighter.

"You better not be in his backyard! Get back over here!"

"He left in his pilot uniform!" Lance yells back. "He won't be back tonight!"

"I don't care! You're out of control!"

"What!? I'm being perfectly reasonable! You saw all those animals, Pidge! What if we're next? Or what if Keith snatches up Rover when he crawls under the fence one day and we never see him again??"

At this, Pidge goes silent. It's quiet with only the sound of Rover whining for at least four seconds before the back of the fence starts scratching. He turns to see Pidge's gloved hand reaching over the top. With a grunt, she manages to pull her head up to peek over the fence.

"Help me up. It'll go faster if we both search," she says.

\----------------------------------

In the kitchen, Hunk is pacing. He'd mixed everything up and now he's just waiting for the oven to heat up to the right temperature to put it all in.

Baking calms him down. It always has. And now he _really_ needs to calm down. He can't stop thinking about the bone in his hand and how it felt. He'd even washed his hands three times and it still feels like some disease is lingering on his hands. So, _yes,_ he's pacing, gloves on hands, ingredients on the counter, icing bag filled to the brim, and he's _thinking_.

So Keith kills animals. Big deal, right? Lots of people are hunters. He used to work at a restaurant where his boss would bring in fresh meat during hunting season for seasonal venison entrees. There's nothing wrong with it.

But. The bone.

Hunk sighs and goes to the front window and looks out at the street. He was well-prepared to live here happily until Lance eventually graduated and had to move out, or until Pidge found a better job somewhere up north, or if either of his friends got married or moved in with a partner. Everything felt so perfect. And now he has to live with the knowledge that their neighbor has pictures of dead animals and bones in a trash bag in their backyard.

A car passes.

A red car.

A _fancy_ red car.

Hunk recognizes it immediately.

It pulls into Keith's driveway, and Hunk opens the window and cranes his neck out. He doesn't normally like spying on the neighbors, but Lance has got him all freaked out now. He watches Keith step out and sneeze. After rubbing his nose on his sleeve, Keith lookx back at the front of the driveway, his face scrunched up suspiciously. Then Hunk's eyes follow Keith's stare—

The trash can lid is lying on the ground next to the empty trash can.

"Oh my god! Lance you idiot," Hunk hisses, slamming the window shut and looking around the room. As he dances from foot to foot, all he can think about is how Keith is going to know it was Lance. It's an irrational thought—Keith barely gives anyone on the block the time of day and hasn't bothered making contact with them after they went over to welcome him to the neighborhood—but Hunk is still terrified. Pidge said she'd get to cleaning the trash bag up when she came inside. All he can do is hope she's fast enough.

He glances out the window to see Keith staring into the trash can and looking around the neighborhood. For a split second he locks eyes with Hunk, and Hunk collapses with a shout onto the kitchen floor and hides out of sight from the window.

The blood drains from Hunk's face as he crawls out of the kitchen and stands up finally, racing to the back door.

"Guys??"

He's not even out the door when he realizes Pidge and Lance are nowhere to be seen. They're not cleaning up the contents of the trash bag. They're not on the porch. They're not anywhere! Hunk turns to see Rover pawing at the fence and just about shits his pants.

They're in Keith's backyard??

"Oh no. Oh no, oh no no no no no!"

He races to the front of the house, throws his gloves off, and opens the door. As Hunk turns the corner and looks into their neighbor's front lawn, he can see Keith is walking up the driveway looking very confused and unnerved.

"Hey, Keith!" Hunk waves and starts towards him, plastering the friendliest smile he’s ever worn in his entire life onto his face.

Keith turns, stares at him, and then his shoulders go slack, as if he’d just huffed. In response he gives back a half-hearted wave. “Hello,” he says, his voice so low and far away that Hunk can barely hear it.

Hunk approaches the fence between them, motions him over, and raises his eyebrows. He’d always thought that the people skills he picked up at the family restaurant were a blessing, but he never would have dreamed that they’d keep his friends from going to jail. "Great to see you!” he beams. “You're in your pilot uniform. Going to work?"

"No," Keith answers. His voice is nasally and his nose is rosy and red. Every so often he sniffs. "Sort of...got off work, I guess? I've been sick lately, and they told me I was too sick to fly so I came home." He narrows his eyes. "Were you...watching me through your window earlier?"

"Y-Yeah," Hunk stammers. "I just...w-well we... It's... It's Pidge's birthday and we—uh—we were wondering if you wanted to come over and celebrate with us?" Once he’s found the lie, the words come easier. "There's going to be cake and we're probably going to go out to dinner or something, too! We'd love to have you!"

"I don't know," Keith mutters, glancing over towards his trash can. He starts up the driveway midway through his excuse. "I'm not feeling too well. I should probably go inside and—"

"Woah! No, no, no, no, no! Don't do that just yet!" Hunk reaches over the fence and grabs Keith's sleeve. "I've actually got a really great remedy for colds that my mother swears by! Do you like lemon grass?"

As if the touch burns, Keith jerks his sleeve out of Hunk's hand and steps back. "Uh— I...I'm fine, really. I just need to sleep is all." His cheeks warm as he reaches down and tugs at his sleeve. "I appreciate the concern, but I can take care of it on my own."

Keith turns and starts heading up the driveway, eyes glancing back at Hunk with a look of apology, and Hunk takes in a deep breath.

He's going to have to figure out some other way to distract him.

\-----------------------------------

"I don't understand any of this," Pidge whispers.

They're standing over a disturbed hole in the line of little graves. On the paper in front of it is the number three over the usual date. It's dated from roughly three months ago. They can see bones sticking up from the hole that Rover had made, but they all look small, and there's still bits of meat stuck to some of them.

"So he buries the animals. We know that for sure. But what are the numbers for? What are the dates for? Does he just dig them up?" Pidge looks over at the little unmarked mounds on the other side of the yard. "And what are those for? Are those more graves? What's buried over there?"

"Does it really matter!?" Lance starts walking around the graves to the shed. "He kills animals! Hang on, I'm going to check out this shed. I'll bet he keeps the murder weapons in here."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"Oh, you want to talk about wisdom?" Lance calls out from around the corner now. "How this for unwise? Our neighbor keeps his murder shed unlocked!"

"Don't call it a murder shed," Pidge gripes as she follows him around to the shed's entrance. "We don't even know if he kills them or not. For all we know he's just finding dead animals in the woods and burying them in his backyard for," she frowns, "some unknown reason..."

Lance isn't paying attention to her. Instead he's opening and closing the door to the shed repeatedly, giving her a self-satisfied smile as he does. She, in turn, gives him a disgusted look and holds her hand out to catch the door on its way back to closed.

"Go ahead and smile away, Lance. I won't be the one screaming like a little girl when it turns out to be a real murder shed."

They both pull the door open and look inside. It's dingy, with only a few pinholes of light streaming in from holes in the roof. Some dusty, used tools line the walls—a rake, a shovel, and a weed whacker. Two bags of fertilizer lean against a wall in the back, directly next to a lawnmower. By the door is a tower of large industrial buckets, like the kind used to clean out fryers…only these ones have a strange pinkish residue around some of the rims.

Everything is normal except that against the walls are six large tubs, three on each side. They're closed and have small blankets lying over the lids, and they're stacked on top of old tires. Four are at about arm level and are easy to get to, but the two in front on each side, closest to the door, are on a lower level. On these two are little temperature gauges whose wires trail down and are swallowed up under the lid.

"This is a shed of death," Lance says, his voice almost reverent.

"You don't know that," Pidge argues with a glance over at him, her eyebrow rising in time with her heartbeat. She turns to the tubs again and feels the gnawing bite of curiosity eating away at her. "We should...probably open one, right? Just to see what's inside?"

Lance holds his hand out chivalrously into the shed. "Ladies first," he croons, but Pidge can hear the anxiety in his voice.

When he doesn't make a step forward, Pidge clicks her tongue against her teeth and steps further in in his place. Inside it smells musty...but moist. And there's a strange mildewy smell that almost smells two steps away from sweet hanging in the air. She holds her nose and goes to the one in the middle on the right.

"He could be experimenting," she mumbles, trying to ease the tension and steel her nerves at the same time. "Maybe he studies the death cycles of living organisms."

"He's a pilot for the airline," Lance reminds her. "I'm telling you. When we open these puppies up we're going to find body parts! _Human_ body parts!" He crouches down and picks up one of the temperature gauges. "...Woah. This doohicky says it's around 100 degrees in this box... Heat like that would speed decay, don't you think? Looks like he’s eliminating the evidence."

Pidge slowly peels off one of the blankets, trying her best not to remember the time they went to the beach as a family the day a dead whale washed up on the shore. "Or maybe he's making sauerkraut," she offers. She looks around the shed again, taking in the size of the tubs. "...A...lot of sauerkraut..."

"Sauerkraut doesn't need to be constantly heated, though. Hunk has four jars of it fermenting in the cabinet!"

"Then, I don't know!" Pidge plants her hands firmly at her side and glares holes into the tub as if that will remove the lid. "Maybe he has a business of growing mushrooms?? Matt set a farm up for Dad after he retired to generate more income! It's dark enough in here to—"

"Quit stalling and open the lid!"

Lance rushes up and storms up behind her, grabbing her hand and placing it on the tub in front of them. She swallows and looks up at him. He just gives her a firm look, lips pressed in a tight line and eyebrows furrowed. A bead of sweat drips down his temple.

"On the count of three we both open it," he says. "Okay?"

Pidge nods. "Okay."

"One.

"Two.

"Three!"

\------------------------------

Hunk stalks after Keith on his side of the fence. He has to distract Keith somehow, and he knows exactly what will work. He’s not as good at flirting as Lance is, but he’s accidentally led people on enough times to know that his brand of kindness is irresistible.

"Keith, wait! Isn't it...lonely??"

Keith freezes at the words, head frozen in place for two seconds to process it all before slowly he turns to stare at Hunk. "I-I'm...I'm sorry??" he stutters.

With a deep breath, Hunk gives him his best empathetic face. It's not hard. The contents of the trash bag had already made him feel somewhat sorry for Keith. He doesn't know who this Brandon is or why Keith refused to open his letters or why he was throwing all of his stuff out, but Hunk can tell none of those things add up to the picture of a good break-up.

"Sorry, that probably came out of nowhere, but...you're always alone in your house and you never get any visitors. We never see you, either... It feels really... Well, I'm, uh, I'm worried about you."

Keith blinks. "... _You're_...worried about me...?"

"Y-Yeah!" Hunk's cheeks begin burning and his mouth goes dry. "It—It just feels like it'd be really lonely not being able to see people from time to time! We're neighbors! We should talk more!"

Keith looks away and crosses his arms over his chest. "That's true," he mumbles, lips forming a small pout. He opens his mouth to say more, but instead a sneeze comes out instead. He wipes his nose against his sleeve with a grumble and looks back to his house. "Ugh, I should really—"

Hunk reaches over the fence and grabs his arm. "I know you're sick and you probably just want to go to bed, but you should come over! I can make you soup! I love cooking and I love taking care of people, so it's honestly no trouble!"

Keith turns to him with a serious look on his face. Unlike before, he doesn't pull away his arm. There's a yearning in his eyes as he searches Hunk's face that Hunk knows all too well. Lance gives it to him all the time after a date goes bad. Everyone likes to be comforted when they feel bad, after all.

"What about your roommates?" Keith asks warily. "They're around, right?"

"They're..." Hunk makes a conceited effort _not_ to look over at Keith's backyard. "...around."

Suddenly the shrill scream of a small girl pierces the air deep behind Keith's house. Both men, startled, turn in the direction of the noise.

"What was that??" Keith gasps.

"Lance??" Hunk shouts.

Keith spins around to face him, eyes blazing. " _Lance_!? Your _roommate_!?"

The blood drains from Hunk's face and he holds his hands out. "W-Wait, let me explain! Our dog Rover brought back an animal skull because he got under your fence and I think Lance—"

Keith's eyes widen, and before Hunk can even finish he bolts for the door to his backyard.

\------------------------------

Inside the tub is a soupy red liquid with little clumps of hair and skin and fat floating at the top like a macabre soup skin. The stench triggers Pidge's gag reflex immediately as Lance lets out a piercing scream at the top of his lungs. She barely has enough to time to turn around before she's throwing up...all over Lance's shirt.

It's warm and wet and Lance fights not to retch in response, stumbling backwards as vomit continues spilling out onto the floor in front of him. Still, his arms immediately reach out to grab her long hair and pull it back away from her face. When she's finally done, she pulls her hair back away from him and looks up at him miserably. "Sorry," she croaks.

"Apology accepted… Next time aim for the floor and not my shirt, though. I almost threw up!"

She breathes in to give a snippy reply and retches at the smell again, doubling over and dry heaving over the spot on the floor where she threw up. From the front of the house comes shouting, and Lance turns to the sound, eyes wide and ears alert, like a deer hearing a snapping twig in the woods.

"Wait, wait, shhhh, did you hear that?"

Pidge slams the lid back over the liquid and hotly turns to him. "No, I did not hear that! I was too busy throwing up, you ass!"

Very faintly they hear, "Keith! Wait! Come back!" coming from the front of the house. It sounds like Hunk. Both turn and stare at each other in horror.

"He's home!" Lance squawks.

"I told you not to come back here!" Pidge screeches in response.

"You followed me so you don’t get to be angry this time," Lance answers, and then he's running for the fence back to their yard.

Pidge follows after him, but it amounts to nothing. Neither one has a chance to vault over the fence, because Keith arrives in a flurry. He slams open the door to the backyard and storms past the back of the house. He's right along the fence, directly in front of where they are trying to make their great escape, and on the other side of the yard. Just a quick sprint would take him right within arm's reach.

"Stop!" he shouts, pointing directly at them.

Lance's eyebrows raise in time with his hands, higher and higher as high as they can go. "Don't kill me!!!" he pleads, instinctively curling inward protectively, his knees and back bending. Beside him, Pidge grabs at his shirt and hides behind him.

Keith swallows and lowers his hand, takes a deep, deep breath, and puts the hand to his head. He looks dizzy. "I'm _not_ going to kill you. I need to explain everything!"

Hunk rushes up behind him, having hopped the fence and ran after him. His hand instinctively goes to Keith's shoulder to comfort him, because he looks like he's about to fall over, but his hand hovers there awkwardly, never touching.

"Uh, Keith? Are you okay? You're really sick, so you should probably lie down."

"Hang on," Keith sighs. "Just give me a moment."

Now Hunk looks past Keith at his roommates and shoots them a glare. Lance lowers his hands and then looks at Pidge. The two share a look and then slowly start creeping towards the front of the yard.

"What’s with all the dead animals!?" Lance asks.

Pidge looks at the mounds under them and then at her hands. "If he's sick, it's not contagious, is it? It's not some sort of plague??"

"It's just a cold," Keith says with a glare in her direction. "I'm very careful with how I dispose of organic material and make sure to avoid contamination from illness or disease."

Lance and Pidge are on him now, Pidge standing a little bit behind Lance and Lance leaning down slightly over him and scrutinizing his appearance. His eyes narrow, and his finger shoots out and jabs Keith in the chest. "So you admit you kill animals, huh? Hope you'll admit it to the cops, too!"

"I don't kill animals!" Keith shouts, grabbing Lance’s hand roughly and throwing it off of him. "They're already dead when I find them, okay??"

"That's not any better!" Lance shouts back. "What kind of weirdo brings back dead animals to their house!? You're creepy!"

"It's _not_ creepy," Keith hisses through his teeth, his tone simmering. "There's an entire community of people who do this as a hobby."

Beside him, Hunk's face pinches together in a wince. "W-Wait, so you...collect dead animals? As in _real_ dead animals??"

"I collect and sell bones," Keith corrects. “A…uh…friend of mine got me interested in it.”

"Of course! That explains the tubs in the shed. With prolonged exposure to water, you'd get maceration," Pidge says, her eyes practically sparkling. "And the numbering system over the graves! You're estimating the time it will take them to rot! Brilliant! You’ve got it down to a science!"

As Keith's eyes brighten, Lance gives her a disturbed look. "Pidge, you'd better not be thinking about getting into this, too."

Pidge steps forward from behind him. "Biological processes are very fascinating once you realize how mechanical the human body really is and how it operates."

"Right?" Keith answers. "The balance between life and death feels so fragile when you realize how easily we fall apart! Our entire world is connected through various cycles and—"

"Okay, woah. Let's stop this conversation right here," Hunk says. "Pidge will go on for hours about this if we let her, and Keith is only going to be encouraging it. Why don't we go home and let Keith rest—"

"What about soup?" Keith asks, glancing back at him.

"Soup?" Lance rolls his eyes and crosses his hands over his chest. "Hunk, you didn't promise him soup, did you?? He'll be in our house for hours waiting for you to finish!"

"I...may have promised him soup," Hunk admits, looking away and turning red.

Pidge raises an eyebrow at him, her words laced with venom. "Oh? That was _awfully_ nice of you, Hunk, especially with the back porch looking like a _garbage dump_.” She puts her finger to her chin for a moment and then sighs. “Tell you what. Why don't we go home and make Keith soup? You and I can entertain him in the _kitchen_ while Lance cleans up the _mess_ he made in the backyard. How about that?"

"Mess in the backyard?" Lance asks. "You mean Keith's—"

Pidge slams a hand over his mouth. Keith's eyes narrow.

"My _what_?"

The three all look at each other, and Pidge's hand slides away as Lance laces his fingers behind his back and walks past them. "Weeeeeell," he says, "I'm gonna go clean up. Gotta make our house look good for our guest!"

Pidge nods and follows after him. "Of course! In fact, why don’t I go help you, Lance? It'll go quicker if there's two of us. Hunk, why don't you entertain our guest since you _so kindly_ invited him over?" As she passes them, she elbows the host hard in the side.

Keith, eyebrows furrowed, turns to stare at Hunk. "What are they talking about?" he asks. Slowly, he crosses his arms over his chest as his eyes drift past Hunk to the front yard and, Hunk fears, the conspicuously empty trash can.

“Well, it’s…uh…it’s a funny story!” Hunk watches them go, waiting until they’re far enough away to get a good head start. He runs his hand behind his head and braces himself for the inevitable outburst.

"Okay,” he starts. “So. Lance did something bad…"

**Author's Note:**

> This was by no means my first fic, but it's my first fic in the fandom. Let me know if you enjoyed it!


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